Page 44 of The Verdant Cage
Just like that, I remember why I dislike Gryphon. I’m a traitor for kissing him.
His next words, spoken so softly I can barely hear them, catch me off guard. “But my father is right about one thing. He knows what you’re capable of. You’re the best Apothecary the Valley has seen. He wants you in our House for whatever it is he’s planning.”
He states this as fact, not praise. I can’t unpack it, though, as a new horror has dawned. “Is that why Nikola was Harvested? So I’d be made a Guardian?”
“I don’t know.” Gryphon’s jaw is rigid.
I’m stunned, without words. And my heart aches for the boy possibly put to death for the crime of being betrothed to me, childhood paste-eater though he was.
Gryphon studies me for a moment and then makes an impatient sound. He returns his attention to the bundle he brought up, removing the object it holds. I finally see the tool that cut a hole through Jarek’s muscle. Like the wound it made, the weapon is completely unfamiliar. Its handle is four inches long and constructed of smooth, silver-colored metal. A longer glass tube is fused to the silver. A small loop is connected to the vee where glass meets metal; a switch rests inside. The end of the tube is scorched.
The revulsion I feel for it is primal.
“My father believes this will be key to our defense,” he says. “He let me fire it today.”
I’m still staggering from everything I’ve learned. Yet my curiosity gets the best of me. “What does it do?”
“I think you know firsthand,” he says. “It shoots projectiles that tear through any surface.” A dark satisfaction lights his eyes. “I saw my father’s bandage, and the blood on it. Remarkable amount, given that the bleeding had nearly stopped the last I’d seen him.”
I feel a surge of shame—I’m a trained healer, after all, and I’d deliberately hurt Jarek—but I extinguish it quickly. No explanation or apology is required when it’s self-defense. “He said you were the one who gave him the original injury.”
Some light leaves Gryphon’s eyes. “It was an accident. My fault entirely.”
“Are there more of these, or only one?”
His expression closes. “More. They’re stored in the weapons barn over by our training grounds.”
I consider this. “How loud is it?” I ask.
“What?”
“When you use it. How loud is it?”
He sucks on his teeth. “Really loud. And it recoils when you fire it.”
The drums of the wedding march were cacophonous, but hadn’t I heard those three strange beats before the screaming began? The music could have disguised the sound of Jarek’s new weapon. But had it killed the Potters’ son? No, Jarek could have bled from his wound for hours and never reached the shriveled state in which the young boy’s corpse was discovered.
I’m racing through the implications of everything I’ve learned. “You’ll still train me?”
Gryphon stares at the moon, all sharp lines and golden skin, Apollo in shadow. “That’s what you’d choose?” he asks.
I don’t hesitate. “It is.”
He sighs deeply, eyes finding mine. “Then it’s lucky you’ve been assigned to the census. If that’s not enough cover, my parents will be working double shifts for the foreseeable future. You should be free in the evenings.”
I nod. Given what I’ve just learned, it’s more important than ever that I learn to fight.
The first time I heard there might be survival atop the Wall—when Marina whispered it, and later when Gryphon confirmed—I dismissed it. Marina lies as easily as breathing, and Gryphon had sounded like he was repeating stories he barely understood. But if he’s telling his trainees, if he told Jonas…then it must be real.
And if it’s real, then Jonas isn’t gone. He’s waiting. He’s fighting.I cannot let him face that alone. The moment Gryphon confessed that he gave Jonas hope, I knew what I had to do. I’m going up the Wall as soon as the tablet has the power to take me.
That means there isn’t much time to find the murderer.
27
I’m woken by cries.
At first, I think they’re from my nightmares—I’d been dreaming of Jonas huddled atop the Wall, weeping—but then I see Gryphon tossing on the floor, battling something in his sleep. I watch him, thinking of all the reasons I shouldn’t comfort him. I tell myself that I want to see him suffer, but it’s not true anymore.
